Industry | Private banking and financial services |
---|---|
Founded | 23 July 1805 |
Founders | Jacob-Michel-François de Candolle and Jacques-Henry Mallet |
Headquarters | Geneva, Switzerland |
Number of locations | 30 |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | François Pictet Laurent Ramsey Renaud de Planta Elif Aktuğ Raymond Sagayam Marc Pictet Sébastien Eisinger Sven Holstenson |
Services | Asset management, wealth management, investment funds, asset services and trading |
767,904,000 Swiss franc (2022) | |
AUM | CHF 638 billion [1] |
Total assets | (2023) |
Number of employees | 5,300 |
Capital ratio | 29.3 percent |
Rating | Moody's: P-1/Aa2; Fitch: F1+/AA- [2] |
Website | pictet.com |
The Pictet Group, known as Pictet, is a Swiss multinational private bank and financial services company founded in Switzerland. Headquartered in Geneva, it is one of the largest Swiss banks and primarily offers services in wealth management, asset management, and asset servicing, to private clients and institutions.
The Pictet Group employs around 5,300 people, including 900 investment managers. [1] It has a network of 30 offices in financial services centres, including registered banks in Geneva, Luxembourg, Nassau, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Pictet does not engage in investment banking, nor does it extend commercial loans. According to its 2021 Annual Review, Pictet had CHF 638 billion ($767 billion) of assets under management or custody, with its total capital ratio significantly exceeding the levels demanded by Swiss regulators. [3] Banque Pictet & Cie SA is rated Prime-1/Aa2 by Moody's, and F1+/AA- by Fitch. [2]
Pictet traces its origin to the foundation of Banque De Candolle Mallet & Cie in Geneva on 23 July 1805. On that day, Jacob-Michel-François de Candolle and Jacques-Henry Mallet signed, with three limited partners, [4] a Scripte de Société (memorandum of association) to form a partnership. [5] Like all Geneva banks at the time, it started out trading in goods but soon abandoned trading to concentrate on assisting clients in their financial and commercial business and advising them on managing their wealth. By the 1830s, it held a broad range of securities on behalf of clients, to diversify their risks.
On the death of de Candolle in 1841, his wife’s nephew Edouard Pictet joined the partnership, and the name Pictet has remained with the bank ever since. Between 1890 and 1929, the Bank went through a period of substantial growth, the number of employees rising from 12 to more than 80 over 30 years. [6] Although the Pictet family had been intimately engaged with the bank since the mid-19th century, it was only in 1926 that the company changed its name to Pictet & Cie.
After a period of relative stagnation marked by the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Second World War, Pictet began to expand in the 1950s as the Western world entered a prolonged period of prosperity and economic growth. In the late 1960s, the Bank embarked on the new business of institutional asset management, which has since grown to account for around half of its total assets under management. [7] In 1974, it opened an office in Montreal, the first of its current network of 28 offices around the world. Its workforce of 70 staff in 1950 rose to 300 by 1980. [8]
As of 2011, Pictet was Switzerland’s third largest wealth management company, and also one of Europe’s largest banks in private hands. [9]
In 2014, Pictet changed its legal structure from a simple partnership to become a corporate partnership (société en commandite par actions), which acts as a holding company for its global business. [10] Pictet did not publish its annual results during its 209 years as a simple partnership, then published annual results for the first time upon becoming a corporate partnership. [11] This enabled the company to manage its businesses in an international environment, [12] and also allows the eight partners who are owner-managers of Pictet to preserve the rules of succession, which have remained unchanged for more than 200 years. Under those rules, ownership cannot be passed down to partners’ children: it is a temporary status which ends once a partner has retired. Partners hand over ownership of Pictet in batches every five to 10 years so that there are always partners from three generations connected to the family, to avoid problems that can arise with generational change. [9] To date, there have been only 45 partners. [13]
Pictet operates by assigning business activities and key functions like human resources, risk control and legal affairs to different partners. Small committees supervise the various corporate activities so that no single partner is solely responsible for an entire area. Pictet Group’s senior partner, who is the most senior partner at the time of appointment, has oversight for areas concerning central corporate functions, such as HR, auditing, risk and compliance. [9] As primus inter pares, he chairs the partners' meetings and represents Pictet inside and outside the bank.
Pictet Wealth Management provides private banking for owners of larger fortunes and family office services for families of exceptional wealth. The services include dedicated asset management, advice on strategy and investment selection, execution in global markets, safeguarding client assets and continuous monitoring. For hedge funds, private equity and real estate investments, Pictet Alternative Advisors, an independent unit, selects third-party investment managers to construct alternative investment portfolios for investors. Pictet Investment Office, is a special unit within Pictet that only looks after the wealthiest and most sophisticated clients of the bank and invest their assets into liquid and illiquid opportunities, in public and private markets following a high risk/return strategy across the capital structure.
Operating out of 22 Pictet offices worldwide, Pictet Wealth Management had CHF 242 bn of assets under management on 31 December 2022 and employed around 1192 full-time equivalent employees, including 375 private bankers. [14]
On 26 November 2012, it was reported that Pictet's wealth management unit was a target of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), suspected of having aided tax evasion. [15] On 4 December 2023, Pictet concluded a final settlement agreement with the DOJ to resolve a legacy investigation relating to services provided by its private banking business to US taxpayer clients between 2008 and 2014. Under a three-year deferred prosecution agreement, Pictet agreed to pay a total sum of USD 122.9 (CHF 106.8) million, of which USD 38.9 (CHF 33.8) million is a fine. [16]
Pictet Asset Management manages assets for institutional investors and investment funds, including large pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and financial institutions. It also manages assets for individual investors through an extensive range of mandates, products and services. It provides clients with active and quantitative support for managing equities, fixed income, multi-asset and alternative strategies.
Since 1997, the department has been developing Socially Responsible Investments (SRI). It now manages SRI core equity portfolios for all major markets. It has also taken a thematic approach, focusing on environmental themes or sectors such as clean energy and timber that are key to the concept of sustainability. [17]
Operating out of 18 Pictet offices worldwide, Pictet Asset Management had CHF 219 bn of assets under management on 31 December 2022 and employed around 1100 full-time equivalent employees, including 432 investment professionals. [14]
Pictet Asset Services provides a range of services for asset managers, pension funds and banks. These include: fund services for institutional or private investors and for independent asset managers; custody services in more than 80 countries; and round-the-clock trading across all significant asset classes by Pictet Global Markets. Fund services include setting up funds, administering them and fund governance. With eight booking centres accessing the single global platform, Pictet Asset Services had CHF 193 bn of assets in custody on 31 December 2022 and employed a little more than 223 full-time equivalent employees. [14]
In 2008, Pictet launched the Prix Pictet, an award for photography highlighting societal interactions and problems. [18] Each year, nominated photographers are invited to submit a series of pictures on a chosen theme, from "Water" (2008) to "Human" (2022). [19] [20] The winner is selected by an independent jury led by David King. [21] Kofi Annan was president of the Prix Pictet from its founding in 2008 until his death in 2018. [22]
Swiss Bank Corporation was a Swiss investment bank and financial services company located in Switzerland. Prior to its merger, the bank was the third largest in Switzerland, with over CHF 300 billion of assets and CHF 11.7 billion of equity.
AllianceBernstein Holding L.P.(AB) is a global asset management firm providing investment management and research services worldwide to institutional, high-net-worth and retail investors.
The Swiss Life Group is the largest life insurance company of Switzerland and one of Europe’s leading comprehensive life and pensions and financial services providers, with approximately CHF 255.7 bn of assets under management. Founded in 1857 in Zurich as the Schweizerische Lebensversicherungs und Rentenanstalt cooperative, the company entered the Swiss stock market in 1997 and adopted its current name in 2002. In 2023 the group declared an adjusted profit from operations of CHF 1.50 billion, a 1% increase compared to the previous year. Net profit increased by 8% to CHF 1.11 billion. Swiss Life is one of the twenty companies listed under the Swiss Market Index, as SLHN.
SEI Investments Company, formerly Simulated Environments Inc, is a financial services company headquartered in Oaks, Pennsylvania, United States. The company describes itself as "a global provider of investment processing, investment management, and investment operations solutions". SEI provides products and services to institutions, private banks, investment advisors, investment managers, and private clients. Through its subsidiaries and partnerships in which the company has significant interests, SEI manages, advises or administers $1 trillion in hedge funds, private equity, mutual funds and pooled or separately managed assets. This includes $352 billion in assets under management and $683.3 billion in client assets under administration, as of 2019.
Robert W. Baird & Co. is an American multinational independent investment firm and financial services company. It is the principal U.S. operating subsidiary of Baird, an international, employee-owned financial services firm providing investment banking, capital markets, private equity, wealth management, and asset management services to individuals, corporations, institutional investors, and municipalities.
Union Bancaire Privée is a private bank and wealth management firm headquartered in Geneva. UBP is one of the largest private banks in Switzerland, and serves private and institutional clients. The bank was founded in 1969 by Edgar de Picciotto.
Partners Group Holding AG is a Swiss-based global private equity firm with US$147 billion in assets under management in private equity, private infrastructure, private real estate and private debt.
GAM Investments is an independent, pure play asset management group headquartered in Zurich. The Group sells to a wide range of client segments such as institutions, wholesale intermediaries, financial advisers, and private investors. The Group’s investment management business is complemented by a private labelling unit which provides outsourcing for third-party asset managers.
Banque Bonhôte & Cie is a Swiss private bank founded in 1815 in Neuchâtel. It is active in the wealth and asset management sector.
Amundi is a French asset management company. With €2 trillion of assets under management (AUM) at the end of 2021, it is the largest asset manager in Europe and one of the 10 biggest investment managers in the world.
UBS Group AG is a multinational investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres as the largest Swiss banking institution and the largest private bank in the world. UBS client services are known for their strict bank–client confidentiality and culture of banking secrecy. Because of the bank's large positions in the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific markets, the Financial Stability Board considers it a global systemically important bank.
Turquoise Partners is a privately-owned international financial services group based in Iran which was established in 2005. Turquoise provides a range of financial services to foreign and domestic clients. Turquoise was in 2014 the largest manager of foreign portfolio investment on Iran's capital markets.
The Lombard Odier Group is an independent Swiss banking group based in Geneva. Its operations are organised into three divisions: private banking, asset management, and IT and back and middle office services for other financial institutions. In 2022, the bank had total client assets of CHF 296 billion, which makes it one of the biggest players in the Swiss private banking sector.
Bordier & Cie is a Swiss private banker founded in 1844 in Geneva and active in wealth management for private clients. It is the last French-speaking private banker in Switzerland, headed by three partners with unlimited responsibility on their own assets. The institution holds a banking license in Switzerland, Turks and Caicos Islands and Singapore and has branches in the United Kingdom, France and Uruguay.
Vontobel Holding AG is an international investment management firm with Swiss roots, providing investment, advisory and solutional capabilities to private and institutional clients. Established in 1924, as of August 2021, Vontobel has over 2,000 employees across 26 worldwide locations. Among the top tier Swiss banks, Vontobel holds around $300 billion of client assets.
Bank J. Safra Sarasin Ltd is a Swiss private bank, founded in 1841 and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. It is currently owned by the Brazilian J. Safra Group, and was formed in its present state in 2013, when Safra Group acquired Bank Sarasin & Co. Ltd, merging it with its Bank Jacob Safra Switzerland subsidiary.
Mirabaud is an international banking and financial group based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1819, it gradually developed into the third largest private bank in the city.
REYL Intesa Sanpaolo, REYL & Cie according to its legal name, is a financial services company founded in Geneva in 1973 by Dominique REYL.
Moonfare is a digital investment platform that secures allocations in private equity and venture capital funds that generally have very high minimum investments or are offered only to institutional investors. Moonfare, splits these investments into smaller tranches using feeder fund vehicles, and makes them available to investors at lower minimums. Moonfare has offered funds with minimums of £50,000 in the UK, €50,000 in Europe, and $75,000 in the US
ONE Swiss Bank SA is a publicly traded private bank and wealth management firm based in Geneva. One Swiss Bank specializes in private banking and tailored asset & wealth management. It provides its services to private and institutional clients across Switzerland and the world. The bank was founded in 2004 by Bénédict Hentsch. Hentsch's bank changed its name to GS Banque in 2014 and merged with Banque Profil de Gestion and Banca Arner, forming One Swiss Bank in 2021. The firm currently has CHF 5 billion of assets under management.